Consequences Are For Lesser Mortals
by Sarah1281
Summary: After it's all over, Sakura isn't sure why they're even bothering to pretend that they need to decide Sasuke's fate. Everyone knows that they've been planning to just ignore everything he's done since he left Konoha years ago and she honestly can't see a little thing like, oh, every little act of high treason Sasuke's committed since then changing any of that.


Consequences are for Lesser Mortals

"I'm actually really proud of my work here," Sakura said. "There was no real precedence for this sort of poll. Sometimes stores send out surveys, such as when Ichiraku's Ramen became a tsukemen shop – don't pout, Naruto – but nothing on this scale."

"That sounds like a lot of work," Kakashi noted. "I don't think you have any appreciation for how grateful I am that I can delegate this sort of thing now."

Sakura smiled tightly. "No, I think we do. I'm hoping to maybe have other applications for all the research I did since we all know you're not going to listen to my results. Even if they agree with you, you'll still do what you want and my results will be incidental."

"And yet you still did it," Sasuke said. "It's not like anyone could have made you."

Sakura frowned at him. "We can't all live in a consequence-free world, Sasuke."

"Maybe 'we all' can't but I don't see why you should be the only one of us held to any sort of standard," Sasuke said reasonably.

"Hey, I will have you know that I am held to more of a standard than you two!" Kakashi objected.

"Well you are much older," Naruto said.

Kakashi twitched. "Not _that _much."

"And frankly, Sakura, if you won't take advantage of the fact that no one can force you to do literally anything, that's hardly my problem," Sasuke said, crossing his arms.

Sakura stared at the ceiling. "_This _is the man I'm unable to get over."

"You should really look into that," Sasuke advised. "At this point, it seems a little unhealthy."

"Oh, no," Sakura said, marching up to Sasuke and shoving her finger in his face. "No, _you _don't get to tell me that I'm being unhealthy!"

"Or maybe you should take the fact that I think it's unhealthy and take it to mean that it's extra unhealthy," Sasuke suggested.

Sakura stared at him. "I…don't quite think that's how it works."

"Why don't you just tell us what you found," Kakashi quickly suggested.

"It really depends on how you ask it," Sakura explained. "When I asked whether Sasuke should be punished for his actions, 98 percent of respondents said yes as compared to the 100 percent who answered yes for 'should Sasuke be punished for his crimes against Konoha and the shinobi world in general.'"

"Hey," Naruto objected. "Sasuke doesn't need to be punished! He's suffered enough and he's my friend!"

"Despite neither of these things having any relevance to the discussion on Sasuke's fate," Sakura said pointedly.

"Sasuke is not actively trying to kill anyone at this very moment," Kakashi told her. "Frankly, I'm a little amazed that Naruto is even willing to talk about it."

Naruto turned wide eyes to him. "Kakashi, I'm not _unreasonable_."

His three teammates wore matching expressions of disbelief which Naruto resolutely ignored.

"If I phrase it as 'do you really want to break the heart of Naruto, our savior, by causing him to break his promise of a lifetime and prevent him from ever dating or becoming Hokage or pretty much anything else as a result of this because you are going after his most precious person' then the rate of yes answers drops to only 20 percent," Sakura reported. "It's really manipulative but, well, there you go. Enjoy your favorable results."

"That is excellent news," Kakashi said, his eyes crinkling happily.

"It will have literally no effect on what you're going to do," Sakura told him flatly.

"I wouldn't say that," Kakashi disagreed. "It will make this easier, that's for sure."

"Why am I even here?" Sasuke wondered.

"Well it's kind of _your _fate we're deciding, Sasuke," Naruto pointed out.

Sasuke shrugged. "But I don't really _care_."

"I know I've suggested this before-" Sakura began.

"If this is going where I think it's going then let me remind you that you've brought this up every time you've spent more than three minutes talking to me," Sasuke interrupted.

"I'm hoping that if I just keep on bringing it up then sooner or later you'll take a hint and do it," Sakura said.

"And I see that your capacity for self-delusion hasn't diminished in the years that I was gone," Sasuke said. "Though I still think that Naruto has you beat with that one."

"And proud of it," Naruto said, gesturing happily with his arm.

"Get some therapy, Sasuke. You need it. Everyone who knows you needs it and it's all your fault. And we _really _need you to get some."

"What ever happened to 'Sasuke, you need to take responsibility for your own life'?" Sasuke demanded, attempting to imitate Sakura and failing miserably.

"Nothing," Sakura said, confused. "I still think that you should do that."

"Well then maybe you should not be a hypocrite and take responsibility for your own need for therapy and not drag me into it," Sasuke said.

"But…your defection and general horrible behavior is most of the reason why we – or at least I, I know other people have other issues, too – need it!" Sakura burst out.

"And might I add that you leaving was far more painful than literally anything else that has ever gone wrong in my life put together?" Naruto asked rhetorically.

"See, this right here is what Kiba's talking about," Kakashi said, discretely jotting something down.

"And it's not like I didn't try to do the responsible thing and kick you all out of my life when I was leaving," Sasuke defended himself.

"As your former teacher and the Hokage of this village once Tsunade could finally find someone else to throw the hat at, I feel that we should really have a talk about the definition of the word 'responsible'," Kakashi said. "Or I guess we could always make your therapist do it."

"Not getting a therapist."

"I don't know, Sasuke, I think it could really help," Naruto said. "I mean, everyone knows that I do what I can but I just don't think that I can beat the crap out of you and yell at you about your life choices and solve _all _of your problems, especially with my arm like this. I mean, I get some great results but there's got to be some sort of follow-up or something, right?"

"I still can't believe that they're developing the Naruto school of therapy," Sakura complained. "That's really not responsible."

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, it will need a lot more empirical testing but it has some very provable results."

"I will tell you the same thing that I told them after the massacre when they tried to insist that I was 'depressed' and 'homicidal' and 'really not stable at all' and 'really really shouldn't be left alone in the blood-stained house that his family was killed in'," Sasuke said firmly. "I am an Uchiha and Uchiha do not get therapy."

"They really should, though," Naruto said. "I mean, _really_."

"I don't believe that."

"I'm just saying that maybe if they had talked to somebody about their concerns instead of staging a coup and sulking and slowly going crazy and occasionally murdering friends and loved ones for more power – and doesn't the Sharingan only manifest once someone's super traumatized anyway? – then maybe things wouldn't have gone the way they did. I mean, I really liked your brother and all but I've rarely met a man who needs therapy more."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Naruto," Kakashi cautioned. "Danzo really _really _wanted his massacre."

Naruto considered that. "Well then at least they'd have the moral superiority?"

"We _always _have the moral superiority in any given situation," Sasuke confided. "True story."

"I'm not even going to touch that one," Sakura said, shaking her head. "We would be here for literally the rest of forever."

"Now you're just misusing the word literally," Sasuke said.

"I'm really, really not," Sakura said. "Hence we will not go into it."

"I'm not getting therapy," Sasuke said. "You can't make me."

Sakura looked at Kakashi who just shrugged. "It's true. We can't. Maybe Naruto could but-"

"I'm just happy that he's back here," Naruto said. I'm not going to push my luck. I'd like to have at least one arm by the time this is over."

"I've actually been wondering about that," Sakura said. "So you could literally stop Gai from dying and regrow Kakashi's eye and all that but your own arm or Sasuke's arm is too much? How exactly does that work?"

Naruto stared blankly at her. "I…don't know? I guess it didn't occur to me to try."

"Well maybe now you _can_," Sasuke said, leaning forward and suddenly paying a lot more attention.

Naruto made a face. "But we're one-arm buddies! Our blood mingled and made a heart and everything!"

"Don't make me run away again," Sasuke threatened.

Naruto sighed. "Fine, I'll think about it. But first we need to deal with the issue of what's going to happen to Sasuke."

"I don't even know what's to deal with," Sakura said. "We all know how this is going to end."

"Well I don't," Sasuke said.

"See?" Kakashi said. "Sasuke doesn't."

"We could always just tell him instead," Sakura suggested. "And not make this pretense of deciding anything. Besides, Sasuke's already confirmed that he doesn't care."

"That is also true," Sasuke said, nodding.

"It's just such a complicated issue," Kakashi said.

"It's really not," Sakura argued. "Sasuke, as much as we love him, has broken pretty much every single ninja law ever. He should be imprisoned forever if not outright executed."

"I'm pretty sure that, as Hokage, it's my job to say all of that," Kakashi said, frowning.

"Sakura!" Naruto exclaimed, horrified. "How can you say such horrible things?"

"Since when is stating how things factually are a horrible thing to get upset about?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke tapped his chin. "Hm, let's take a guess. Perhaps when I ditched Konoha and became a missing-nin?"

"Yeah, probably," Sakura agreed.

"Sasuke, we really should just lock you up forever," Kakashi told him.

Sasuke shrugged. "Hey, I was willing to die not long ago just to make it less inconvenient to have peace or something."

"And we talked about how that was a stupid idea," Naruto said pointedly.

"Sakura is right that we don't want to and never wanted to just treat you like a regular missing-nin and if the fact that we're willing to give you fifty million chances and take your tragic backstory into account when we're not willing to do it with literally anybody else makes us hypocrites then so be it," Kakashi said. "We've been called worse and if that's the worst a shinobi is guilty of then they are far, far too much like Naruto."

"Did you ever actually kill anybody?" Sasuke wondered. "I mean even I started killing people at some point."

"Yeah but it was Danzo so I don't know if that counts," Naruto said.

"How did you not kill anybody?" Sasuke demanded. "It's a little ridiculous, especially with you always being on the front line!"

"Well…sometimes I've come pretty close but then other people step in and kill the mortally wounded person so I guess my hands are still clean," Naruto said, shrugging. "It helps with my image as the savior of the ninja world, I think."

"Part of me thinks that you really should kill _somebody_, Naruto," Kakashi said. "You've been a ninja for years now, after all, and gotten into way too many fights not to have. But on the other hand, there's kind of a dearth of people to kill now that we're at peace forever. Or at least as long as Naruto is around to shame everyone into not killing each other and Sasuke is around to threaten to put everybody back into the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Sasuke nodded. "I am doing my part to work towards peace."

Sakura groaned. "This is just so messed up…"

Naruto cleared his throat. "But anyway! So we don't want Sasuke to be punished because it would just make all of us miserable and, given Sasuke's terminal apathy, he probably wouldn't even care all that much."

"Well what are we supposed to do?" Sakura asked. "There's only so much of a hypocrite that you can actually be."

"Oh, dream a little bigger, Sakura," Kakashi told her. "With me being the Hokage and Naruto being the savior of everything and best friends with pretty much everyone he's talked to once-"

"Close friends," Naruto interrupted, smiling at Sasuke. "The position of my best friend has already been filled."

"Hence the reason that Gaara will never forgive Sasuke," Sakura noted. "Or any of those other almost best friends of Naruto's, for that matter."

"Hey, I tried to give it back!" Sasuke said defensively. "It's not my fault that he wouldn't take it."

"You can't just change your mind about these things!" Naruto exclaimed. "Once you make a commitment you're expected to keep it."

"Naruto, there's a good chance you might be confusing 'best friendship' with 'marriage'," Kakashi said helpfully.

Naruto shook his head. "No, I really don't think so."

"I'm with Kakashi on this one," Sakura agreed.

"You guys are really terrible at best friendship, though," Naruto said. "Real best friends never give up on each other ever. Even when said best friends want to kill them and destroy everything and everyone they know."

Sakura and Kakashi exchanged a look.

"Maybe _you _should look into therapy," Sakura suggested.

"I've been trying, believe me," Naruto said, sighing. "But Sasuke just isn't interested."

"Not exactly what I meant."

Kakashi cleared his throat. "As I was saying! With Naruto and I being powerful and, in Naruto's case, having a rather frightening cult of personality, we can pretty much do what we want and don't have to listen to those twenty percent of the population we can't figure out a way to market this to. Marketing is key so that we have much less headaches and, I don't know, assassination attempts or something so I leave that to you, Sakura."

"Yay."

"Wait, what's the plan?" Sasuke asked, confused.

"I thought you didn't care," Naruto said smugly.

"I don't, really, but I don't understand what's going on," Sasuke said. "And I hate that more than I don't care about being back and alive and all of this."

"We're just sort of going to pretend that none of this ever happened and let you just come back, no questions asked," Naruto said.

"We might not even bother with a pardon," Kakashi added.

"Though that might just be laziness on his part," Sakura said.

"I…feel like I should probably be more surprised than I actually am," Sasuke admitted.

"Really?" Sakura asked. "You're not surprised? This is rather unprecedented and completely ridiculous. I know I was surprised."

"Well, to begin with, I refuse to be treated like a normal person," Sasuke explained. "And I have been offered that whole 'come back to Konoha and we'll just forget all of this ever happened' from the moment Naruto caught up to meet at the Valley of the End."

"Yeah but back then you hadn't even done anything but attempt to leave the village," Sakura protested. "Surely it's a little different now. I mean, technically Danzo was the Hokage when-"

"THAT NEVER HAPPENED," her teammates said loudly, all more or less at the same time.

"You can't just decide that because you don't like something that happened it's not history!" Sakura protested.

"Maybe I _shouldn't _be able to do it but I think that the evidence speaks for itself, actually," Kakashi corrected her.

Sakura sighed. "Maybe _I _should be Hokage. Clearly I'm the only one who cares about these sorts of things."

Naruto smiled sheepishly at her. "Sorry, Sakura, but there's a waiting list like eighty years long at this point. If you're still around by then you're welcome to become Hokage right after Kankuro."

"Aft-after _Kankuro_?" Sakura couldn't believe it. "Naruto, he doesn't even go here!"

"Well he might move," Naruto pointed out. "Eighty years is a long time. Besides, his sister might move here if she and Shikamaru actually get together."

"How do you know he won't move there?" Sakura asked. She paused. "Oh, right, too much effort. But that doesn't mean…you can't just call being Hokage!"

"Sure you can," Naruto said cheerfully. "I did it ages ago. Konohamaru called it after me. Kiba's not happy that he's after Sasuke but, well, Sasuke called it first."

"…You know what, that's not actually my problem," Sakura decided. "So that's that then? Even after everything Sasuke's done, we're still sticking with the same way we would have reacted had Naruto won that fight the first time around?"

"I didn't lose!" Naruto objected immediately. "I simply passed out first! It was a tie."

"I won that fight," Sasuke said smugly. "I not only managed to stay conscious but also managed to flee the scene and make deep philosophical decisions."

Naruto growled but said nothing.

"Well what do you suggest, Sakura?" Kakashi asked. "You wanted to save him, too. Plus aren't you still in love with him?"

Sakura sighed. "Yeah. It just…this isn't how things are supposed to go."

"If you don't stop this line of thought right now I am fully prepared to explain to you, in detail, exactly how not like how it was supposed to go my life turned out," Sasuke warned.

Sakura shivered. "No thanks."

"So why not just save everybody a lot of time and effort and just make it simple?" Kakashi asked rhetorically. "Plus everybody knows that Sasuke was essential in saving the world."

"And what about when, two minutes later, he tried to kill Naruto and ruin the world?" Sakura demanded.

Naruto winced. "We…kind of didn't tell people that part."

"Naruto!"

"What?" Naruto asked defensively. "It would just confuse the issue."

"The issue being getting Sasuke to escape any sort of negative repercussions for his behavior?" Sakura asked rhetorically.

"Well…kind of?" Naruto scratched the back of his head. "His whole family was murdered by his beloved older brother and it was all Danzo's fault!"

"You can't just use that as an excuse for everything he ever does!" Sakura complained.

"Not everything," Naruto promised. "Just this blank slate."

"So you say _now _but if he relapses again I just know you're going to bring it up again," Sakura said darkly.

"No…" Naruto said unconvincingly.

"Are you actually opposing this plan to let me do what I want or are you just being difficult?" Sasuke asked bluntly.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "I'd prefer to think of it as being the voice of reason."

Sasuke nodded. "Ah, being difficult it is. Look, this is great that you're doing this for me but frankly as long as everyone isn't killing each other I still don't care. At some point I should probably have some kids and bring my clan back but maybe enough major life changes for one day."

"That's probably for the best," Kakashi agreed.

"So what are you going to do instead?" Naruto asked.

"Well first I'm going to need my arm back," Sasuke said.

"I said I'd think about it!"

"And then after that I guess I'm going to go see the world or something."

"Haven't you spent the last four years doing literally nothing but that?" Naruto asked rhetorically.

"I didn't actually see all that much when I was in Oto," Sasuke told him. "But yeah. Still, I need to see more of it."

"But you just got back!" Sakura protested.

"And yet I want to go," Sasuke said simply. "And as we've discussed, you can't stop me and apparently I don't have anything to answer for anyway. Naruto, come find me when you're done being a dumbass and are going to fix me."

With that, he turned and walked away.

"I think that went rather well," Kakashi said brightly.

"All I'm saying," Sakura said, annoyed, "is that maybe this is not the sort of behavior we should be positively reinforcing. Just a suggestion."

Naruto cocked his head. "What do you mean? I think it worked out great!"


End file.
